Halloween

By Christian Percival

Posters.

Immediately you notice that these two posters for the film ‘Halloween’ are extremely similar. This creates intertextuality between the different products. As you can see both include a slogan, being ‘The evil has returned’ and ‘Evil walks among us’, which is a key theme within the film. They are also similar as they both show the killer, known as Michael Myers on both posters. On both posters he is holding a knife which looks dirty with blood and dirt. Both show the killer with the same clothes on as well, again to create links between the products.

Both of these two posters create a scary theme which is what it aims to do, this is created by the two different settings of the poster, one on a rainy, horrible day and the other seems calm; but in the background is his old home which he will be revisiting. They also both show Michael Myers, but they don’t show the whole of his face, they only show the side of it, this could be because there is something that they don’t want you to know about him. Also on the Halloween 2 poster there are pumpkins littered across the scenery, which links the title of this poster to the holiday of Halloween, which is also shown through the weather and the trees that are typical to a film about Halloween.

These are the two DVD covers of Halloween and Halloween 2, again they are very similar with the positioning of the writing and the images. Firstly the slogan which is common to the two posters as well are both at the top of the cover, ‘Evil has a destiny’ and ‘Family is forever’ this links the two together again. Also the title is towards the bottom of each cover and in the same colour and font, the directors name is also in the same place on each one again to create links and make it easier for the user. Additionally the dates of these two film releases are similar, but in different years. This shows that this was the best time to target their market, however I think it would’ve suited them better to release the films around Halloween to create more links between the films and the user. Finally the images are both showing part of his face but not all of it to show they are hiding something and they both use two large images to fill the page which are effective. The one on the left shows the face made up of what seem to be family members that he is possibly after, which again links to the slogan of the second film.

DVD Covers.

Other Products

The company that made Halloween need to create other products to help maximise profit, which they have done. Here is a Halloween costume (on the left) which generally only real fans of the film series would buy, however it can also be used as an Halloween costume so this is a good product to release as it will be quite popular. On the right is an uncut version of the film which is again for the real hardcore fans of the film, this is where the scenes that were taken out of the film are put back in so it offers extra scenes for the fans that loved the original film. They have also released products such as toys – as silly as it sounds and shirts, again these are for the real hardcore fans of the franchise and will help maximise profit.

The Website

This is the website which also helps promote the film in different ways, the website itself already makes the film known but it also promotes it in other ways, the community, this is an online forum on this site which will allow fans of the film to talk about the film, which will help advertise the film to someone who hasn’t watched it. Additionally there is a merchandise page which offers different products from the company, again to maximise profit.